


to build a home

by usoverlooked



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Justice League - All Media Types, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5 Things, Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Green Lantern - Freeform, John Diggle POV, Multi, Post-Season/Series 03, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 11:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4178673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/pseuds/usoverlooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five weird things that happen to John Diggle and Starling City. </p>
<p>Or also, how a team is built over time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to build a home

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I love Oliver Queen's dumbass as the next person, but Diggle is seriously underrated. Also, this show is going in some weird (bad?) directions, so I'm offering an alternative. This is a little self-indulgent, but it's fun.

Nyssa walks into the Arrow Cave (which, John silently curses Felicity every time he refers to it as that but it is underground, so technically it’s accurate) and announces that she went to Ikea and bought a bed and would someone help her put it together. That’s the first weird thing. The weird thing continues about thirty seconds later when she says she’s moved in with Laurel.

“She found us a two bedroom. The kitchen has what she calls a nook,” Nyssa explains as she fiddles with a knife. John blinks at her, then stares up to the sky. He’s hoping that at some point his life will start makings sense again but it doesn’t seem like that’ll happen anytime soon.

Eventually, Ray – who is not on watch but rather scouring real estate ads after the incident with the explosion – volunteers to help and Nyssa only sneers a little bit before offering something close to gratitude. The two of them leave shortly thereafter, with Ray practically bouncing as he explains to a rather cross-looking Nyssa how he met the Ikea CEO and really, the company’s just a great model. John can’t help but grin to himself at it. He suddenly wishes, not for the first time, that Felicity was there. She texts, occasionally, and sends Thea snapchats that the younger girl screenshots and shares with the group. It should be enough, but it isn’t.

The thing is, for almost four years (John’s rounding up a little, but still) Oliver and Felicity were two of the most important people in his life. Lyla joined them, of course, and baby Sara surpassed them, but it was different. Felicity and Oliver were family to him, just as much as his girls.

Felicity had spent summers with John even before Lyla came crashing back into his life. Even without Oliver, the two of them had worked. When Oliver had disappeared after Tommy Merlyn’s death, John had expected not to hear from Felicity much. Instead, she had just inserted herself into his life. He’d never asked about it, but one night he stalked through her Facebook and figured it out a little. Her friend list was short, like she’d culled some out. The reason why remains a mystery, and that’s fine, John knows and accepts that the people in his life will always hide pieces of themselves. He just knows that she needed a friend and chose him that summer. He’s glad. He remembers once, Felicity with a smudge of ice cream on her nose, grinning when he found her charger from somewhere in the cave. He’d never wanted a little sister before that.

Even during the past few months, there’d been some sort of understanding between the two of them. Maybe it was because neither of them knew the Oliver from before the island, knew only the Oliver haunted by more demons than perhaps any of them realized. One night, when trying to figure out how to get to Nanda Parbat, Felicity had pulled her knees up to her chest, put her chin on her knees and stared at John like there was some solution hidden in his face.

“I don’t think Oliver’s ever going to give all this up,” she had said, so softly that he knew what she meant. She meant he’d never choose her over this.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be able to accept that he can, Felicity,” John had answered her. And she’d nodded like she understood. Except, now she was somewhere up the coast with Oliver and a sunburn on her nose and some trick of a happy ending.

Yet, John can’t be much more than annoyed with Felicity. She’ll regret parts of it, the parts where she hurt Ray and gave up pieces of herself probably, but she’ll fix them – he trusts in that. It’s Oliver he’s really mad at. Oliver, his brother, the godfather of his child, the truest friend he’s had besides Lyla. It’s not just that Oliver left him on multiple occasions, it’s that Oliver seems to just accept the anger that comes from it. John could probably punch Oliver and Oliver would just take it, just assume that letting John hit him would somehow absolve him. John can’t quite articulate it, the way it irks at him that Oliver assumes time or space or something that is beyond his own control will earn John’s forgiveness. Sometimes, he looks at the hood, remembers when it was just the two of them with Felicity just flitting in the edges of it all, and just for a selfish moment he wishes for it all back. But then, Lyla will come in with case files for the private investigator’s office she’s working at and Sara and a case of beer, or Thea will drop by with dinner and ideas for new secure routes for health supply trucks to use, or Nyssa and Laurel will radio in that they broke up some gang meeting, or Ray will send the group text a picture of his dog, and John remembers how worth it the whole group of them are. It’s just, he feels like somehow he got lumped in with the new kids and he’s not one of them. He likes them – loves them, if Lyla’s teasing is accurate – but, he’s old hand. He’s been here from the beginning.

The only person who might understand is Roy, which is fucking depressing, and besides, he’s technically dead, so John just stews on it sometimes.

 

 

Ray texts him after apparently finishing up at Nyssa’s, asks if he can buy John a beer and have John explain some things. It’s vague enough that it worries John, so he agrees. Lyla doesn’t reply to his text that he’ll be home late, which he deserves probably. But, it’s done and so he meets Ray at Verdant, grabs a case of beer from behind the counter and heads down to the Cave. Thea shoots him a look when she sees him carrying it, but he knows she’s got a soft spot for Sara and, in turn, Sara’s dad, so he just keeps going.

“I would’ve actually bought you something. Should I pay Thea for this?” Ray asks when he arrives. He looks back up the stairs, sort of nervous. It’s probably a good thought, to be a little scared of Thea. If John had to place bets between the two, he’d choose Thea, no doubt.

“Don’t worry about it, man. What’s up?” John asks, holds out a beer to Ray. Ray nods a thanks as he takes it, some sort of subtle politeness that the man always seems to exude.

“So, uh. I guess, is there some sort of crash course in the history of – well, I don’t know. All of this,” Ray motions around the room with his beer. John waits, knows from hanging around Felicity that silence around their sort leads inevitably to the real question. Sure enough, Ray laughs a little. “Just, I mean, Nyssa mentioned a Sara, and I’m guessing she didn’t mean your daughter, since she’s not even a year old. And, I guess that I know some of it, like that Oliver was on an island and that you were in the military and Nyssa’s training Laurel and Nyssa is, uh, well, Nyssa, but no one’s ever really given me anything concrete.”

“Why ask me?” John asks.

“Well, you – you’ve been in it since day one, right?” Ray asks. John must look a little surprised at that because the other man grins. “I do pick up on some stuff. Everyone refers to you, even Oliver sometimes.”

“Yeah, I was his bodyguard for about a week before we both admitted he didn’t need me for that,” John admits and Ray laughs a little. John nods, takes a breath and dives in.

There’s no easy way to explain it all, especially since Ray knows even less than John thought he would. He’s an animated listener, making faces the whole way through. When John tries to explain about Oliver trying to explain that Sara was dating an assassin (“she had leather and a sword, Dig! Sara shouldn’t be involved with that,” Oliver’d said and John had laughed for two solid minutes before answering his friend.), Ray actually cracks up and in turn, John laughs.

“So, you didn’t know any of this and you still went to Nanda Parbat with us?” John asks. He wants to ask about the rest of it – you still lent us your jet, you’re still civil with Oliver even when all you know of him is the mask and that Felicity broke up with you for him. But, he doesn’t.

“Felicity thought we should go and I trusted her judgement. And I just – I don’t know. It felt like a good thing to do. You guys always seem to try to do the right thing and I want to do that too.”

John isn’t quite sure what to say to that. He just nods, holds up his beer in a salute. Ray does the same.

“Hey, uh, can I ask something else – was I… Did everyone else know it was always going to be Oliver for her?” Ray asks. After he says it, he looks down to fiddle with his beer label. It strikes John suddenly that he likes Ray. Ray’s a good guy, Ray says what he means. Ray would probably never gambit his friends lives in a play to look loyal to an immortal leader of assassins.

“Man, I don’t think she knew. Last I knew, she was tired of him stringing her along with somedays. Felicity always seemed so sure that she wasn’t going to…” John pauses, tries to figure out what he means. “Look, I can’t say that her and Oliver never had something happening between them, but it was never something they put before other people like this.”

“Huh,” Ray says. He points at John. “You’re mad at them too.”

It’s the first time someone other than Lyla’s noticed. Lyla noticed and offered to shoot Oliver somewhere nonlethal (“If you want me to shoot him in his nether regions, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to flip Nyssa for the right,” she’d teased, grinning up at John), but Lyla also threatened to shoot Oliver after he left a pair of gloves at their place so. John nods, shrugs.

“All of the stuff the two of them have done lately, it’s just…” He’s searching for the right word.

“It’s a dick move,” Ray suggests. John bursts into laughter.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

 

The second weird thing that happens is that Sara walks in the Arrow Cave. She’s ten months old, so it’s not completely unexpected. But John’s still in awe of it. He turns to Lyla, who is eating a Twizzler and staring at their daughter like she’s sprouted a second head.

“Oh, our lives just got harder,” Lyla says. She drops the Twizzler on the desk. The desk used to be Felicity’s, but Lyla and Laurel have both adopted it. Lyla for her investigative work and Laurel for hero business.

Lyla stands and scoops up Sara after she falls, cooing at her.

“What does it say that her first steps were in your secret hero headquarters?” Ray asks from the doorway. Lyla raises her eyebrows.

“It says nothing or else her mama is gonna be real mad,” Lyla says, cooing it in a baby voice.

“Well, Lyla knows best,” Ray quips the saying that the group of them have adopted. It was first said by John, but since then everyone but Nyssa’s adopted it. Even Felicity, who returned about two weeks prior with a tattoo on her ankle and no Oliver in sight. She seems happy enough, though John keeps an eye on her. He’s not over it entirely, still sorting it all out with her and the missing limb of their trio, but, she’s family.

The girl in question breezes in then, passing a coffee to Ray on her way in.

“Y’know at some point, I’m really hoping Thea will tell her bouncer to stop checking my ID and then asking if I’m really 21. It’d just be nice, that’s all I’m saying,” Felicity motions with her own coffee cup on the word ‘all’ and some of it sloshes onto her shoes. Felicity groans. “Today is the worst day.”

“Sara just took her first steps,” John says. Felicity spins, stares at the baby in question. Sara holds up a tiny fist and Felicity grins, a little shakily.

“Sara’s also in need of dinner,” Lyla mentions. “Johnny, you joining us?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute to talk to Felicity,” John answers. Lyla nods, kisses the top of his head. Sometimes, John remembers the woman who used to play with the kids at the base and is in awe of how right he was back then when he knew that was what he wanted.

Lyla shoves the diaper bag at Ray, who dutifully takes it and waves to John as he trails Lyla up the stairs. Ray has somehow become Sara’s favorite of the hero gang, probably due to his willingness to walk her around the room repeatedly and point out things that aren’t just weapons. Also, he once shrank down in the ATOM suit and pretended to be the conductor of Sara’s toy train. It’ll be a miracle if the baby ever fully understands object permanence, but it was cute.

“So,” Felicity says, leaning back on her desk. The desk she uses now is against one wall and her smile had frozen in place for a moment when she’d walked in and Thea had explained that they’d moved her stuff to that one.

“So what happened with you and Oliver?” John asks. Felicity makes a noise that’s dismissive but John gives her a look. It’s a dad look or a big brother look and he’s glad he has a chance to practice it before Sara needs it.

“He just – Well, it turns out that the part after riding off into the sunset is, uh, messy. I mean, not that I don’t – we still love each other, I think, but it’s not. I thought that’d be enough, I guess. Not that I’m naïve, but it seemed like he had worked enough out that, well, y’know.” Felicity finishes with a shrug.

“He does love you, but he’s still Oliver. He’s still the guy who’d rather jump on a bomb to stop it rather than disarm it,” John says. Felicity nods, nudges up her glasses with her hand as she rubs at her eye. “I think you got so hopeful because you were together and he wasn’t dead like you thought he’d be that neither of you let the dust settle.”

“It just seemed like… God, it was just easier. It was easy to decide he was worth whatever. Y’know I told Ray to leave the nanobots and save Oliver? Like, him over the city. And, I didn’t – I don’t want that. That’s not, it was just… I think, I got a little lost.”

“It all worked out,” John reminds her. She shrugs. “You did hurt people though.”

“Yeah, I really… Ray deserved better than that. I mean, not that I should’ve stayed with him – I could’ve handled the break-up better but he’s just.. It was like Barry all over but worse because – God, Barry had – has – Iris and Ray doesn’t,” Felicity stammers around it all, flapping one hand as she talks. It shouldn’t hurt that it doesn’t even occur to her that she hurt John too, because she did do Ray wrong. Ray’s shared enough that John has to side with him, despite his love for Felicity.

“Ray’s a good guy,” John says in reply. Felicity sniffles as she nods.

“He meant himself. You hurt him as well,” Nyssa comments from atop the salmon ladder. John had forgotten about her up there and from Felicity’s squeak, it’s clear she didn’t notice the former assassin. Nyssa rolls her eyes and sighs. “Honestly. I cannot believe Sara thought so highly of you.”

With that, she flips off the salmon ladder and walks out. Felicity balks at her and John scratches at the back of his neck.

“I didn’t- Oh, she’s right, isn’t she?” Felicity’s voice warbles on that. John holds on answering because Nyssa’s partially right, though perhaps a little harsh.

“Oh, Dig. I’m so sorry,” Felicity says softly.

“You and Oliver seemed to forget that it was the three of us. And you’re in love, I get it, but. It’s been my fight for just as long,” John says, careful. Felicity nods.

She leans up from the desk, walks over and hugs him.

“You can – you’re allowed to be mad at me. I mean, of course you can be mad at me, I’m not, I don’t need to give you permission to be mad, I just – what I mean is that I get it and you should be mad at me. But you – I’d really like it if you didn’t hate me because I’m sorry and you’re my best and oldest friend, and I can’t. Dig, I don’t think I can be someone you hate,” she says, her tiny arms wrapped around him. John smiles over the top of her head.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah, alright, I’m mad at you,” John says, his smile leaking into his voice. She laughs, the sound of it a little watery. “But I don’t hate you. I don’t think I can be someone who hates you.”

“That’s really good news,” Felicity says, pulling back. She straightens her glasses. “Well, okay, you should go to dinner with your family. I have to help Thea break into that cat lady’s hide out.”

“I thought she was an Alice in Wonderland person?”

“Cheshire cat, I guess. Whatever, Thea’s all hung up on catching her,” Felicity flaps a hand at that. “Go, your daughter and wife are waiting.”

John makes it to the stairs before he thinks to say it.

“Felicity?”

She hums a reply, fingers typing furiously as she works.

“You’re family too.”

She stops typing, turns to look at him.

“Stop making me cry, John Diggle,” Felicity says.

 

The third weird thing that happens is a ring. Oliver’s still gone even a year later, but he calls more often. John’s not too mad anymore but something’s faded a little between them. Oliver’s aware of it, lets it settle like he deserves it. It frustrates John how much Oliver just takes on as part of his punishment for existing, but there’s only so much he can do. All in all, though Oliver’s doing alright, it sounds. Apparently, he’s found a like-soul in the shithole of Gotham. (“Don’t tell Felicity but he’s stealing the cave title,” Oliver confesses quietly during one Skype call with John and baby Sara) There’s rumors of someone like Barry, but not quite, in another town, but there’s too much happening in their own backyard for John and the rest to really pay it much mind.

“This world is changing,” Nyssa says, one day while Lyla’s stitching up a cut on Nyssa’s arm. Nyssa shakes her head. “That man had died before. Laurel’s found a grey hair.”

“On that guy?” Lyla asks, scrunching her nose. Nyssa shakes her head again.

“On herself. She’s quite shaken by it,” Nyssa says and then smiles a little. Across the room, John realizes she’s made a joke and is struck by the fact that the world truly must be changing.

Then, a green ring sails into the room and onto his finger and the world goes from changing to tipping on its side.

 

“A Green Lantern?” Lyla asks as she turns the ring over in her hand, later.

“I wouldn’t have chosen it,” John tells her. She gives him a look.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she says, deadpan. She raises an eyebrow. “You should just be grateful I had my hands full with Nyssa when this thing flew in.”

“Or it would’ve chosen you?”

“No,” Lyla says, softly. “I would’ve kept it away from you. Kept you a little safer.”

She holds the ring back out to him.

“It chose you for a reason, Johnny. You’re a good man.”

“You make me one,” he admits. She smiles at him, that full beautiful smile he fell in love with years ago.

“Maybe I help a little,” she admits. Looping her arms around his neck, she leans in. “Just try to be a good man who comes home to me and your daughter, okay?”

“Always,” he agrees because he can’t – won’t – imagine a life where they aren’t what he comes home to.

 

Oliver shows up shortly after that, in his Arrow gear, with Barry in tow. Barry looks absolutely awestruck when John flies down to meet them on a rooftop, which John admittedly appreciates. Oliver looks almost cross though.

“Do you know the limitations on it yet?” He asks, gruff. Barry smacks his arm.

“C’mon, he just floated down from space. Can’t you just appreciate the majesty of that?”

“You aren’t worried about the science of it?” John has to ask. Barry shrugs.

“Space, who knows, it’s beyond me,” Barry says, rather magnanimous in his defeat in the face of science. John laughs, nods in agreement at it. Oliver clenches his jaw.

“Mind if I talk to Oliver alone?” John asks. Barry nods, then is off quickly. John turns to his old friend. “Been a while.”

“I’ve been figuring some stuff out,” Oliver says. John waits. “Stuff that I couldn’t figure out here. I knew you and the rest could handle it here.”

“Me and the rest minus Felicity,” the words practically slip out. Oliver’s brow furrows, he shakes his head.

“She came back here, didn’t she?”

“After you two rode off into the sunset. Y’know man, I want to be happy for you but,” John stops himself. Oliver just stares at him.

“You’re mad,” the words are weighted. Oliver nods. “I deserve that. I did what I had to do, but-“

“Man, I know that you think that. But, Oliver, you kidnapped Lyla. You made us all think you were going to kill us. You used Ray and Nyssa. Did it never occur to you to ask for some help? I’ve always – it’s been me and you and Felicity, that’s why it worked.”

“I just – it was supposed to be safer,” Oliver says, but it doesn’t even sound to John that he believes it. Oliver sighs. “I don’t know. Sara came home and died. I couldn’t let that happen to any of the rest of you.”

“You have to let people make their own decisions.”

“I’m-“ Oliver sighs, back straightening. “I’m trying to figure out how to do that.”

John nods, figures he can only expect so much. He turns to go and Oliver grabs his arm.

“I’m sorry. For all of it,” Oliver says. “I don’t know how much that matters, but I am.”

Before John can reply, Barry’s runs up.

“There’s a girl with wings who just crashed into a park,” Barry says. He grins. “This week is great.”

He’s gone again and Oliver sighs before walking towards the edge of the rooftop to jump down.

“Oliver?” John calls to him. “Thank you. It does matter.”

Oliver smiles, just for a second.

 

There’s about a year where nothing truly strange happens. Thea starts dating a girl who might be a super villain, but it’s really nothing major. Oliver comes back for a few months because it’s still his city. Felicity ends up on John and Lyla’s couch for most of the first week, a bottle of wine in hand. Then, in the span of a few days, Lyla’s pregnancy gets far enough along that she has to stop wearing jeans, the woman with wings moves into town (her name’s Kendra) and the fourth weird thing happens.

“A woman in white gutted that Sixth Street rapist yesterday,” Felicity announces to the group of them.

“Should we send flowers?” Nyssa asks without looking up from filing her nails. Laurel laughs while Lyla, Ray and Thea all murmur in agreement. Ray, though largely against murder, shrugs like flowers would be a nice touch when John gives him a look.

“Well, uh, funny thing,” Felicity says and then the door opens.

The fourth weird thing is Sara walks in the Arrow Cave.

Oliver’s a few steps behind her, nodding, like yes, he’s checked, it’s her. Nyssa makes a noise like someone’s pulling the sound out of her before she charges over. She’s murmuring in Arabic, touching Sara’s cheeks, and crying. It takes everyone else a moment, but when they catch up it’s good. Ray cheers, despite never knowing her, and Kendra claps, though she looks confused. Laurel sweeps her sister into a hug and Sara’s crying.

“I don’t know, I just really don’t know,” Sara keeps saying, but it doesn’t really matter, John thinks.

It takes a while for him to talk to Sara, which is fine.

Laurel keeps an arm looped around her sister’s shoulders, teary-eyed, with Oliver hovering near. Nyssa backs away, looking as nervous as John’s ever seen her. It takes a bit but finally, Sara extracts herself from Laurel, stepping towards Nyssa.

“Two years later, you still think we’re worth a shot?” Sara asks the other girl. Nyssa nods jerkily.

“Always,” she says, voice soft in a way John’s rarely heard it. Sara grins, that dimply smile from memories, then loops an arm around Nyssa’s neck and pulls her in for a kiss.

When they pull apart, to Laurel and Felicity cheering, John understands them. He never had, before, because Sara seemed so kind and Nyssa so, well, Nyssa. Even though she was softer around Laurel, she was still prickly and judging and at times, unkind. But he sees it here, in Sara’s unabashed smile and Nyssa’s beaming grin. Sara’s what Nyssa had been missing. Laurel laughs at the both of them.

“I told you she still loved you,” Laurel says and it’s unclear which of the two she means. After a few moments, Nyssa blushes (which, John is shocked to learn is possible for her, but)  and offers to go up and grab a drink for Sara. While she goes, with a bubbly Thea in tow, John moves in next to Sara.

“I named my daughter after you,” he says simply. Sara’s grin changes, from pure joy to something closer to sadness. John shakes his head. “Not just because you died. Because Lyla and I felt like it’s a name that means something. You made it mean something by how you live.”

“Princess.”

John blinks at her and Sara laughs.

“It means ‘princess’.”

“Well,” John says slowly, nodding. Sara laughs again, face bright.

“For you two, it means warrior princess,” Oliver puts in and somehow that’s what makes John truly forgive him. Sara’s laughing and the whole thing feels like a missing piece found and someone offers Lyla a drink and she declines.

“She’s pregnant,” John says without thinking and everyone cheers.

“You could name the baby after Laurel, have a matching set,” Thea teases and Laurel tries to shake that off.

“If it’s a boy?” Lyla asks.

“Not Oliver,” Sara puts in. There’s a tense moment where Oliver just nods, like he deserves that. Then Sara adds, “Olivers worry too much.”

Everyone laughs and Felicity rubs a circle into Oliver’s back when his ears go red from the comment.

 

 

There’s too many of them in one city really, but no one wants to move.

Except, Sara gets a little restless and Nyssa apparently owns a house in Coast City (“I did not realize I had to inform you of all of my assets,” Nyssa says haughtily when Felicity gets flustered about not knowing about it. Next to her, Sara giggles and Nyssa smirks a little like she’s proud of that) so they move after Lyla has the baby. It’s a boy and they name him for John’s brother – well, both of them, since Lyla suggests they use Oliver as a middle name. Oliver cries when John tells him, then hugs him and then goes out and buys Felicity flowers. Maybe it’ll work out for them, but maybe it won’t. Felicity dated some surfer for a bit but it didn’t work out. (“I think he could talk to fish. The dolphin at the aquarium waved to him, I am so sure of it,” Felicity declared) Something about it seems right this time, John thinks, so maybe it will this time.

Thea and her girlfriend (whose real alias Oliver still doesn’t know, much to his chagrin) sell Verdant and move as well, to Chicago to open a club there. There’s enough crime there for them to keep busy and Thea promises to buy Oliver a plane ticket whenever he needs to see her. She makes John and Lyla swear they’ll bring Sara and Andy by at least once a year, then gives Lyla her car (“What, I don’t need it anymore,” she says with a wave of her hand) and leaves.

About six months after that, Ray and John finish taking down a gang and Ray asks if it’s ridiculous to move to Midway City just to be near Kendra. (“I can’t even lie and say that it’s the city because the city’s not much better than here. More for the ATOM to do, though. I could probably find a protégée,” Ray says this last part like it’s a realization that he’s very excited about). John looks at his ring, decides that they really don’t need Ray there. He does make Ray promise he can be best man if he marries Kendra. (“Wow, of course,” Ray says, like he’d be the one honored by it)

Then, Laurel gets a job offer in Central City and it’s a good offer and she’s close with the gang over there, so it makes sense when she goes. Her dad grouses about it for two weeks before he retires and moves to a suburb of Central, much to Felicity’s agitation.

It leaves John, Lyla (who is adamant that she is not very much involved in this hero gig, even as she’s setting up plans while Andy naps), Felicity and Oliver. John doesn’t think any of them really realize it until they’re waiting for the rest of the group one Thursday after John’s taken out a drug shipment and the other two have cheered him on. Oliver’s learned to take something of a backseat, or at least let other people take their own risks. It’s clear it still pains him and Felicity jokes about getting him a mouth guard because he grinds his teeth so much. John’s not sure what the two of them are exactly, but it doesn’t really matter. The two of them are happy. John is too. Every time Oliver stops at Big Burger, he picks up food for John too and Felicity always puts John on speaker phone when he’s on baby duty but they need to plan. They’re a unit and it works and it’s not until the three of them are sitting there that they realize it works this well even with just the three of them.

“The ring helps,” Felicity points out, like it’s only fair to give credit where credit’s due. Both John and Oliver mutter in agreement.

“It helps that it’s us,” Oliver points out. He leans back in his chair, makes a face like he’s in pain a little. “How long has it been?”

“Eight years? Ish?” Felicity says, rounding up just a hair.

“All this in seven years,” John says, shaking his head, almost amused. Something strikes him. “Hey, all this in seven years and without any help.”

“We’ve had help. The Lances and Barry and Ray and Kendra-“

“Yeah, but I mean, okay, look, Lyla was talking about how the main reason ARGUS is so formidable is the resources they have. The league of assassins was the same way, they had so much man power, it gave them power.”

“Right, so what are you suggesting, Dig?” Oliver leans forward again as he asks this. John smiles.

This is the fifth weird thing, and by far, the most powerful of all of them.

“So, what if we do that too. Form a league.”

“A league of superheroes?”

“Sure, why not?” John holds his hands out, liking the idea. “A justice league.”

It takes a moment, but then both Felicity and Oliver react.

“Eh, I’m not sure on the name.”

“Yeah, the name’s a little much.”

Then, Oliver nods.

“But the idea.”

“We’re already a team, man. We should all just make it official.”

(The fifth weird thing? It’s that the name sticks.)

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm tempted to write the misadventures of Laurel and Nyssa living together, but alas another time perhaps. Would love any/all thoughts, feel free to also come talk to me @masonjo on tumblr.


End file.
